chow

I was hoping to have more of a food focus on the blog, but really haven't done that very well to this point. So now, as you may have noticed, I added a little section to the right which will keep track of most of what I eat over the next two months. I'll just keep adding pictures to the slide show so that you just need to check out the last few pictures. Better late than never...

hiking doi chiang dao

This past weekend I opted to head back north to Chiang Mai for a little hiking, some cooler weather and a bit of an adventure. After a long night of drinking with the Kellogg folks Friday evening, we started off the weekend with a day-long Thai massage class on Saturday. Turns out giving a proper Thai massage is rather strenuous. Not ideal when you stay up to the wee hours partying the night before. Nevertheless, it was still a whole lot of fun, though I'm not entirely sure my massage skills have actually improved any.

Sunday, Joud, John and I rented scooters and went north to Chiang Dao for the day. Now this was a bit of an adventure... In general, there isn't much hiking to be dne in Thailand, and unless you're with a guide, there's not too many hints as to where trails might go, or if they even exist. Nevertheless, we wanted to do a hike, didn't want to follow a guide, and only had a day. Doi Chiang Dao, the third highest peak in Thailand, and 80km north of Chiang Mai seemed like a perfect challenge. So with that in mind, we set off at 7am to get an early start on the hike. The only directions we had were from a random blog post I had found on the internet, which claimed that the hike was doable in a day: 3-4 hours up, 2-3 hours down. The vertical was purportedly 3000 ft or so. Besides this post, there wasn't much to be found anywhere online about the hike. All the other information we had from various travel agencies around Chiang Mai claimed that it was a two day hike, and that hiring a guide was a sensible idea. course you all know how I operate by now...

So we got to Chiang Dao at about 8:30 or so and decided to fuel up with some breakfast. Fried rice for John and I and two eggs (including one heart shaped egg) for Joud. A good start. Then we had to find the wildlife sanctuary main office which was mysteriously located at a different spot than where you enter the park. After finally convincing the park ranger that we were capable of doing what she thought was at least a 6-8 hour climb in 3 hours, that our bikes would not be stolen and that we knew what we were doing, she finally sold us an entrance pass for 200baht. Now we had to find the actual trailhead, which of course is not marked. We drove about 12km up a very steep hill, which was rather challenging when you're topping out at 4mph. After stalling a couple times, we eventually found the unmarked trail head (thanks to the blog post we'd printed out), parked and locked our bikes and started up the trail.

The trail was actually easy to follow, since guides to take tourists up and down regularly. The hike was a bit more strenuous than I had anticipated but after 3 hours of straight climbing we had made it to the top... or not. actually john is the only one that made it all the way up. Joud and I essentially quit 20 minutes from the peak. What can I say - you can't win everything. Nevertheless, it was a great hike and certainly doable in a day.

The ride home was a bit of an adventure since we left as the sun was setting. A hour and a half drive on a scooter at night in Thailand is not exactly relaxing. However, the roads were relatively straight, well lit, and well paved, and we carefully made it back safely to Chiang Mai in time for dinner and a well deserved beer. Once I get John's pictures of the peak and the thai massage class I'll post those up too.

Now back in Bangkok for week three of classes and two midterms on Thursday! hooray!

vespas and temples

I spent this weekend in and around Bangkok eating, going to markets and temples, and even doing a bit of school work - gasp! Saturday night I visited the Vespa Market, which is a weekly market geared towards Thai hipsters into older scooters. It was actually more of a flea market where you could buy anything from old Vespa parts to retro household items and everything in between. It was actually one of the more interesting markets I've been to in Thailand as the pictures below will hopefully attest to. Sunday I went north to Ayutthaya, the old Thai capital. It's something like a mini-Angkor Wat. Pretty cool, but not really on the same scale as all the temples in Angkor. As for food, yesterday I also discovered the all you can eat, conveyor belt hot pot. You're given a bowl of broth and then little plates of food to cook in the broth pass by in front of you continuously on the conveyor belt. Of course, there's also all the sushi, ice cream, appetizers, fruit and soda you can possibly consume in 80 minutes. All this for $9. Ridiculous.

life in bangkok

First week of school life in Thailand is going well. Classwork seems far less rigorous than Kellogg, but the classes are generally pretty interesting. I'm currently enrolled in Competitive Strategy, Managing Human Capital in a Global Context and Spreadsheet Modeling. Most of the classes are 3.5 hours long with a 30 minute break in between. So I generally have class from 8:30-12:00 and then 1:00-4:30 every day of the week.

The best part of school by far is the outdoor swimming pool that is adjacent to the cafeteria. We often eat lunch pool side - certainly better than the LSR, and it's nice to go for a swim after class :)

So far the workload has allowed me to continue to explore Bangkok. On Tuesday I went to the Arab quarter for some tasty Lebanese food with a few Kellogg students. I hadn't been to that part of town yet, and after discovering how lively it is and how much great food there appears to be, I'll definitely be heading back. Wednesday we went to the Calypso Cabaret show, which was... interesting. Not sure how to describe it other than a lot of Thai lady-boys dancing for 45 minutes... yikes.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from school and from in and around the city over the last couple days. This weekend I'm sticking around here, hitting up a market or two and perhaps heading north Sunday to the ancient capital of Ayuthaya.

kanchanaburi and beyond

I spent the weekend in Kanchanaburi province as planned. It's about 120km or about a 3 hour bus ride north of Bangkok. I really had a good time there as there is plenty to do in and around Kanchanaburi, yet it's one of the few places in Thailand that isn't completely overrun by tourists. It's kind of like a mini-Chiang Mai. I got there midday Friday and promptly made my way to the Death Bridge Museum and the adjoining war memorial cemetery. Both commemorate the enormous loss of life during the building the Thailand-Burma railroad at the hands of the Japanese in WWII. It's a rather somber place to visit, but was thoroughly fascinating and well worth it. Once done with that I made my way to the famous Bridge on the River Kwai which was packed with tourist, but with a better understanding of the history behind it, it was worth the detour. Now I I just have to see the movie.

On Saturday, I rented a scooter and drove myself further northwest to Erewan National Park. There I climbed the seven levels of the Erewan Waterfall, which was one of the nicer waterfalls I have ever seen. After couple hours of hiking and bathing in the waterfall pools, I continues another 10km on a dirt road to visit a cool little cave. I was the only one there - benefits of not being part of a tour group - and the park ranger took me around the cave with his pressurized kerosene lantern in hand. Besides the usual stalactites and stalagmites, I also saw the worlds smallest mammal - the bumblebee bat which is 11mm when fully grown. The 100-mile round trip on a small scooter was a bit long, but definitely worth it.

Sunday, I decided to continue exploring the region on my trustee little scooter and headed northwest once again (albeit on a different road) to Hellfire Pass and on to the local hot springs. This trip was a bit longer - about 90 miles each way, and while I'm glad I stopped at Hellfire Pass, I could have passed on the hot springs. Hellfire Pass was also part of the Thailand-Burma railroad, and was considered a particularly difficult stretch to build. The workers essentially dug through 25 meters of solid rock in some spots to build the rail bed. Thousands died in the process. Seeing the mass of rock that needed to be excavated manually was definitely impressive. Meanwhile, the hot springs were overrun with vacationing Thais and busloads of Russians, which made for a not-so-relaxing stop. I decided to go on a little further to the town of Thong Pha Phum simply to see a bit more of the countryside. Overall a great day of exploring.

Now I'm back in Bangkok about to go to school orientation. Not sure what the blog will be like when I'm actually "studying," but I'll try to keep it going.

mabuhay!

Spent the last week in the Philippines with my sister, Liz. We didn’t a whole lot of time in Manila and instead went south to Lake Taal straight away. There we climbed the world’s smallest active volcano for a peek inside. Not only is it the worlds smalled volcano, but its basically a lake within an island within a lake within an island... Unfortunately there's not much going on volcano-wise besides the small inner lake and a bit of stinky sulfur steam. We only spent a night in the nearby town of Talisay, since there wasn’t much of anything going on - it was actually somewhere between empty and deserted. So we continued south via tricycles (the local variation of the tuk-tuk, though even more rickety and dangerous), jeepneys (extended jeeps that serve as defacto jitneys/buses around the country – also not particularly comfortable), a bus, and a ferry. Eventually we got to White Beach near Puerto Galera, located on the northern end of Mindoro island. There we mostly relaxed, doing a bit of kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, and taking a drive out to see some waterfalls on a scooter. The island is very quiet with most of the activity revolving around scuba diving. Overall the food was pretty mediocre as the island was pretty isolated, so we didn’t really eat anything that was worth writing home about – actually I don’t think we ate veggies for three straight days. Yum! Overall, we only got a brief taste of the Philippines and had a good bit of fun – but it sure seemed disorganized! Now Liz is on her way home and I’m back in Bangkok about to head up to Katchanaburi – of Bridge on the River Kwai fame - for the weekend, before school starts on Monday.

bangkok

I've spent the last few days with the family in Bangkok. It's is a huge, quite exhausting, rather frustrating, very hot, and yet thoroughly fascinating place. The pictures below are from the touristy side of Bangkok. A canal tour along the Chao Praya River, a trip to the Jim Thompson house, a visit to the grand Palace and Wat Po and some good food along the way. Next time I'll try to capture the craziness of the city a bit more, but here are the pics for now. Now Liz and I are off to the Philippines, while the rest of the family heads back to the cold. We'll be heading towards some hopefully not-too-active volcanoes and will try to get some r&r at the beach.

2010

Happy New Year from Bangkok!

angkor part deux

here's the second round of temples from cambodia. Not quite as prolific as the first day, but some nice temples this time around as well - most notably Ta Prohm, or the "Indiana Jones Temple"